OP here. Lots of false assumptions in the above quoted post. The motivation for starting the thread was to share with fellow Villagers what a very well respected investor had to say about Bitcoin. Your jumping to a lot of conclusions. Just like dogs, golf, pickle-ball, types of music, etc…, everyone has an opinion about the pros and cons of various things. I get that a lot of people have both made and lost lots of $$$ on crypto. People have also made money on snake oil. As a retired investment professional, what bothers me about crypto is that I like to invest in assets that have some intrinsic underlying fundamental value, which crypto doesn’t! What frustrates me about crypto is that many of the smart minds of our society are spending their time, effort, and brain power buying and selling a digital token that adds no value to society. The efficient allocation of capital is a critical element of a productive society. Crypto is consuming valuable capital with no productive benefits. Wouldn’t it be great if those efforts were instead geared toward real investments/businesses that actually provide needed goods and services?

I always listen to what Mr. Buffet says about anything - but, I do my own dd. Other investors whom I also respect, say it is the future.

I have one BTC purchased at $6500.

The US taxes INCOME from employment and from investments (investment income). The purpose of taxes is to give a government (federal, state, or local) the money that it needs to perform the tasks that the residents of that government want to have done and chose to have done by the voters in those governments. An individual may want a new bridge to be built in his city but he is powerless, by himself, to build it. A government can combine taxes paid by MANY
individuals to actually accomplish the building of this bridge - which is known as PROGRESS. Without government, each individual would still be in the Caveman period.
........A government often spends money to increase STABILITY and lawfulness in society. Everyone desires that. But, many complain when a government spends money to try to move individuals out of poverty or spends money on education. These complainers do not realize that they themselves benefit from that spent money because it gives them STABILITY and LAWFULNESS. It takes a government to build a bridge or a road, not just one shortsighted individual.
.......Any government needs tax revenue coming in. They COULD tas by many methods .....income, wealth, property value, number of children, by luck (or unluck ) of a lottery, by age, or by height. It could be any system using ANY variable. Obviously, INCOME is the normal variable of choice.

Actually, if I had my way, they would have term limits.

Good post, I agree. And civilization itself could come apart by wars or diseases. At which time people would go back to barter as in, "I will give you 2 fish for 1 rabbit".

Yes, that is one risk to economic stability, but there are several greater risks out there in the world today.

Agreed, good post!

Don't take that deal. A rabbit is worth five fish. Easy.

Many businesses accept BTC as a form of payment. You can purchase a new car with BTC from several dealers .

People are afraid of things they don't understand. How does that Lennon song go ..... living is easy with eyes closed misunderstanding all you see.

This thread should be forwarded to our new ministry of truth. Several posters would be indicted for misinformation.

I'll add one more thing ... BTC has been trading since 2011. It's currently at $38K. It's only traded above $38K for a little over a year. So every purchase made for the first 10 years was at a price below what it's trading at today. Pretty much all the HODL'ers are ahead of the game. Some of us by a LOT.

OK, 2 more things. Bitcoin IS exclusive. Only about 2 million more will ever be mined. Unlike those green pieces of paper in your wallets which get created out of thin air daily. The exclusivity is what sets BTC apart from Fiat currencies.

Ethereum is the only other significant crypto and serves a different purpose than Bitcoin. If you want to compare 99% of the rest of crypto's to tulips go ahead. But not Bitcoin.

I bought a gun with Bitcoin.

:: completely legally ::

^^ Agreed.

There are strict rules on how many Bitcoin will ever be mined/produced. Which is not the same with the dollar. Do you realize that your government increased the total number of dollars by 1/3rd in the last 2 years? They have been doing it and will keep doing it....making the dollars in your wallet worth less and less.

Dollars are only worth something because we all agree they are worth something. Not unlike Bitcoin. Dollars have been around longer and have the "full faith of the US Government" (which...what does that even mean anyway??) but they are both currencies. One can be manipulated, one cannot.

Obviously you might want to think twice about putting it all on Bitcoin. But if it goes to $500K per in a few years you might look back and wish you picked one up somewhere along the way.

Joe

Can one of the posters here contact Bentley and explain that Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme to them? Hopefully, next year they won't do so well in the rankings.

Rankings & Recognition | Graduate Admission | Bentley University

Buffet has always invested under the mantle of (rough quote) "if you don't understand it, don't invest in it". I've always followed that advice, and have no regrets. I have researched bitcoin and other crypto currencies, and simply do not understand how high speed powerful computers doing calculations to solve complex math problems creates any value. It just doesn't make any sense to me, so I avoid crypto completely. Great products, dividends and strong balance sheets I understand. Call me old fashioned.

That's perfectly reasonable.

It's the people who go out of their way to scream about how awful bitcoin is like on this thread that I have a problem with. Especially when most don't understand it.

Buffet famously didn't buy Apple for decades. Until he did. Thankfully I ignored him on that as well.

This I found interesting. Warren Buffett acquired 90 to 95% of his net worth since age 65. He has also given away billions along the way.

Buffett made 95% of his wealth after the age of 65 | Cambridge House International

Warren Buffett Has Amassed Over 90% of His Wealth Since He Turned 65 | Barron's

Bill Gates is now big in farmland. Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the United States. Why? | Nick Estes | The Guardian

Buffet vs another famous investor

At least you won't have 2 fish stolen from you in taxes.

Who?? Oh, flash in the pan.

I find it amusing that multiple Boston Area Colleges lost millions to Madoff and his Ponzi scheme.

I find this parable possibly relevant to cryptocurrency created out of nothing. Parable: The Emperor Has No Clothes | by Mattimore Cronin | Medium

Lots of people in Stage 1: Shock + Denial here

The 5 Stages Of Getting Orange-Pilled | ZeroHedge

You can buy a boatload of Bitcoin with Tether. Too bad you can not invest in the issuer of Tether.

According to a recent study, 70 percent of Bitcoin trading is done in Tethers. On any given day, Tether is by far the most-traded coin, its volume often double that of Bitcoin. If you want to gamble at the crypto casino, you need Tethers.

Ben McKenzie on Tether, the potential danger at the center of the crypto economy..

Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

I'm old enough to remember when Buffet would spout off non-stop about how the "rich" should pay more in taxes. Then Propublica got a dump of IRS data on the richest people in America. No more sermonizing from Buffet once this story got published:

No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.


Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
2014-2018 Wealth Growth:
$24.3B
Total Income Reported:
$125M (0.51% of wealth)
Total Taxes Paid:
$23.7M (0.10% of wealth)
Note: Values in the graphic are rounded.
That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.

The problem is the rich are able to buy enough congressman to make laws to help them avoid taxes. Term limits would be a good way to stop this.

"As of July 2020—when he donated about 16 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares, worth around $2.9 billion—Buffett had given away more than $37.4 billion to philanthropic causes, according to Reuters.

Earlier in the year, Buffett topped Forbes and SHOOK Research’s list of the biggest philanthropic donors in America after giving away $14.7 billion, or about 16 percent of his net worth, over a five-year span.

In June 2021, news of Buffett's largest donation to date was somewhat overshadowed by the news he also had resigned from the Gates Foundation board. However, the 4.1 billion stock donation in 2021 surpassed his previous top donation in 2019, when he gave away $3.6 billion, according to Reuters."

From: How Much Has Warren Buffett Donated to Charity?

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.”

~ Judge Learned Hand
(1872-1961), Judge, U. S. Court of Appeals
in the case of Gregory v. Helvering 69 F.2d 809, 810 (2d Cir. 1934), aff'd, 293 U.S. 465, 55 S.Ct. 266, 79 L.Ed. 596 (1935)

"The top 10 percent of earners bore responsibility for over 71 percent of all income taxes paid and the top 25 percent paid 87 percent of all income taxes. Both of those figures represent an increased tax share compared to 2017. The top fifty percent of filers earned 88 percent of all income and were responsible for 97 percent of all income taxes paid in 2018."

From: Who Pays Income Taxes? - Foundation - National Taxpayers Union

"On Wednesday, the Tax Policy Center (TPC) released estimates on the portion of households with no federal income tax liability, finding that in 2020, about 60.6 percent of households did not pay income tax, up from 43.6 percent of households in 2019."

From: Increasing Share of U.S. Households Paying No Income Tax

This may explain some of the carnage seen in bitcoin lately.

One type of cryptocurrency, a so-called stablecoin, is meant to keep its value at $1. But on Monday, the third-biggest stablecoin, TerraUSD, fell as low as 69 cents, causing a flood of investors to sell their holdings.

Cryptocurrency TerraUSD Falls Below Fixed Value, Triggering Selloff - WSJ

The crypto whales will do everything they can to keep bitcoin above $30. A good time if you are a trader.

:bigbow:

Now Tether is starting to look a little shaky. If it goes look out below.

Tether price | index, chart and news | WorldCoinIndex

But those were big pages!!!

https://constitutioncenter.org/media...nstitution.pdf

Foundations are tax shelters for rich. They get to control money and pass it out to relatives on million dollar plus payrolls. All while the deducting it off as tax breaks.

So what's the point? His accountants followed the tax laws and he paid what our laws said he should. I imagine he was arguing that the laws should be changed. In the meantime, are you implying he should just ignore the laws and make a donation to the government? Instead he donated billions to charity and has pledged to give away 99% of his net worth. I say good for him.

"Instead he donated billions to charity and has pledged to give away 99% of his net worth. I say good for him."

A lot of those who hate Buffett, purposely ignore this fact. Ironically, a lot of them are also pro-crypto and hate him because of his negative comments about it, but I wonder how they feel now - after crypto's massive fall lately? LOL

LOL, cherry picked old news. By the way - what's the score now? ;)

I like Buffett. He is old school as am I.

If it is a legal loophole, it is not cheating. Like they teach in law school, there is NO such thing as right and wrong. There is only legal and illegal. Kinda 'slains the (lack of) moral code in that profession, don't it?

Same as all the other "massive falls". Wait that's not true. Some of the others have been 80 or 90% falls.

So this one is not so bad. So far.